Everton captain Phil Jagielka believes the club's striker
shortage could prove costly in the race for UEFA Champions League
qualification.
The Merseyside outfit fell a 1-0 defeat at fellow
top-four hopefuls Tottenham on Sunday, with Emmanuel Adebayor's goal in the
second half settling matters.
Defeat was somewhat harsh on an Everton side who enjoyed
the better of large spells of the match, but Roberto Martinez's men were unable
to break through the Tottenham defence, with winger Steven Naismith starting as
an auxiliary forward in the absence of Romelu Lukaku, Lacina Traore and Arouna
Kone.
January loan signing Traore was only fit enough for a
place among the substitutes at the weekend, while Lukaku remains sidelined with
an ankle issue and Kone is a long-term absentee with a knee injury.
Everton are now five points adrift of fourth-placed Liverpool,
and Jagielka feels their lack of an out-and-out striker proved the difference
at White Hart Lane.
"We're struggling a little bit at the moment,"
he told the Liverpool Echo. "Lacina is not quite right yet and it's
difficult because although we played some good stuff we were perhaps missing
that fox in the box or target man to get us the goal.
"It's frustrating and at the least we should
probably have kept a clean sheet and come away with 0-0 but we didn't.
"It's going to be a little bit harder for us now,
there are other teams in the mix for fourth.
"If we'd beat Spurs we'd have pushed on a little
bit, but there's still 13 games left and a lot of points to play for.
"A lot of teams are trying to get as many points as
they can for one reason or another and we've got a lot of hard games too."
Culled from Soccerway
